


Le Fou

by MoonEater



Series: j'ai peur que les dieux en colère se vengent sur nous mes frères [1]
Category: Arthurian Mythology, Arthurian Mythology & Related Fandoms
Genre: First Meetings, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-07 05:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19203235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonEater/pseuds/MoonEater
Summary: Summertime beautyHer love so kind and childlike,Richer than honeyA.k.a. Merlin: Origins





	Le Fou

**Author's Note:**

> This short little oneshot marks the beginning of a series re-imagining Arthuriana.
>
>> Thanks to MtGarfield for the challenge and for making me get off my ass to write something. Love u bud 💜 
> 
>   
> Hopefully I'll make it through it in one piece. 

_Summertime beauty_  
_Her love so kind and childlike,_  
_Richer than honey_

 

* * *

 

In her wake, summer. In her laughter, vibrant and teasing, echoes of a world not his own. Soft footed thing, with a hummingbird heart. 

From the first time he had seen her, back bent over the golden fields, minding the wheat, he had lost all pretense of indifference towards the affairs of men. As he watched her calloused hand swinging the sickle about, tracing flashes of silver, and noticed the sweat starting to pool on her brow, he began to feel that she was standing at the edge of the point where all the worlds meet, pulling him out of himself and nearer still to her.

Her kind would not have called what he felt love, for they had long convinced themselves of being the only creatures capable of such feelings, and thus believed that his people could only parody man's capacity for them. And yet, he was so stricken by her that he couldn't help but linger in the midst of the swaying grain until at last she took her leave, and thereafter would come to her little farm at each break of dawn and wait for her.

And so it was, for a time. He would hide in the shadows and watch her work the land, and with each day he'd feel more certain of his love. It wasn't often that a mortal would manage to captivate one of the Fae, but when the children of the Otherworld loved someone, they did so fiercely and all at once.

He loved her for how she'd dance with her sisters in the twilight, their singing loud and off-key. He loved her for the steel in her eyes as she wiped off her bloodstained hands on her apron after killing a hen, and even more for the small prayer of gratitude that escaped her lips once she'd finally caught the headless beast, still running, trying so desperately to cling to life. And he loved her most of all, for those times when forgetting herself, she'd look to the world around her with pure, childlike wonder.

Man, unlike the other children of the Earth, did not remain bound to his heartland for long, slowly shaking off his ties to it as the years passed and he grew into a realm spun from laws and wars and shame. His young however, were born from the bosom of the Earth equal to their more discerning kin. Rarely did they keep their reason throughout the full extent of their lives, but every so often they would let themselves remember it for just a fleeting, stolen moment of clarity.

It was surprising then, perhaps, that one such rare moment was all it took to forever seal her fate. She had been intently following the path of a single ant, who despite finding itself somehow separated from its colony, seemed to brave the word with no less determination than if it had a whole army at its back. She quietly followed the ant as it slowly made its way home carrying a dead bee twice its size, until she lost it in the tall grass on the side of a hill. Her eyes were unfocused and her steps unsure, as if somewhere along the way she had taken the ant's heavy load upon her own shoulders. When her sight cleared, after a deep breath, and she lifted her head to face the top of the hill, she was still in that state of in-between, and to his shock she saw through the veil and fixed her dark eyes on his.

Under her cutting gaze he felt just as startled as she did, and rushing to ease her fears, he found himself begging her not to run from him. She sighed, eyes shut against a gust of wind, straw-coloured hair moving all around her, and the sight of her made him relive all his love anew.

Breathless, he asked for her name, for the Fae could not learn such things just from watching someone, even if they did so for a century. No, names must be given. And he desperately wanted hers.

She was still for a long time, quiet and waiting. And then something in her heart shifted and like a fool, she gave it to him.

**Author's Note:**

> [The Fool](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fool_\(Tarot_card\))   
> 


End file.
